The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity

Yael Navaro

Published by Duke University Press 2012

The Make-Believe Space

Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity

Yael Navaro

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822395133

Overview
Contents

About this book

This is an anthropological look at the Turkish territory of Northern Cyprus, a self-defined state, which is actually imaginary (because it is only recognized by Turkey). Navaro-Yashin surveys the affective landscape, examining the sense of haunted property and objects lost and gained in the partition, along with peoples relation to the fictive remapping of places and history by this new state.

Author / Editor information

Yael Navaro-Yashin is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Newnham College. She is the author of Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey.

Reviews

"An unforgettable ethnography of a nation-state whose special status sharpens our eyes to the make-believe quality of every state. Yael Navaro-Yashin's evocative writing brings to life the scarred landscapes of Northern Cyprus and the affective worlds of Turkish-Cypriots who inhabit them—uncomfortable with 'looted' and abandoned objects, melancholic about the ruins of war and the ghostly Greek presence, and cynical about the banal apparatus of the state, whether its documents, laws, or occupations. Intimate conversations with philosophers and theorists weave in and out of profound ruminations on the details of people's interactions with their pregnant material worlds in this unique study that reveals anthropology's incisive beauty."—Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University

"Can the experience of citizenship in an illegitimate state reveal something about state making more generally? In her insightful account of Northern Cyprus as 'make-believe' space, Yael Navaro-Yashin traces the diverse practices—imaginative, material, and affective—that craft this de facto polity, both as fantasy and as tangible truth. In the process, she offers profound insight into what it is that makes nation-states believable everywhere."—Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago

“Navaro-Yashin’s book is a serious and intriguing exploration... Navaro-Yashin’s work strongly engages this conflict [in Cypriot identity] and, in so doing, enlivens and broadens the social science discourse on Cyprus.”

-- Bayard E. Lyons Social Analysis

“This book is a must-read for scholars interested in the Mediterranean region as well as those with a more general interest in the intermingling of politics,materiality and affect.”

-- Mikkel Bille Ethnos

“The Make-Believe Space is a genuinely important and lucidly written book. The theoretical originality that oozes from every single chapter renders it a very inspiring political ethnography.”

-- Erden Evren American Ethnologist

“The Make-Believe Space is a very rich account of a violently partitioned spectral space, a stunted temporality, a haunted and cynical people, and a state with no stability, legitimacy, or recognition. It is well written and full of interesting stories. It is innovative in its focus on materiality and affect. I would highly recommend it to those interested in affect theory, material objects, and state formation in post-war contexts.”

-- Banu Gökariksel The Australian Journal of Anthropology

“The Make-Believe Space will appeal to readers in search of an analysis of statecraft that troubles the grounding of its legitimacy and authority in the law. As an ethnographic encounter with critical theory, the book also offers rich material to scholars studying the politics of affect and the socio-materialities of natural and built environments.”

-- Kabir Tambar PoLAR

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
Introduction: The Make-Believe Space Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Spatial Transformation
1. The Materiality of Sovereignty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
2. Repopulating a Territory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
3. The Affects of Spatial Confinement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
Part II Administration
4. Administration and Affect Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
5. The Affective Life of Documents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Part III Objects and Dwellings
6. Abjected Spaces, Debris of War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
7. Affective Spaces, Melancholic Objects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
8. Home, Law, and the Uncanny Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
9. Collectibles of War and the Tangibility of Affect Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 296
Illustrations
- Other: 12 photographs

eBook

Published: March 12, 2012
ISBN: 9780822395133